


Among Them

by UltraDinoWarrior



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Dark Comedy, F/M, Gen, Horror, Science Fiction, Tragedy, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26657491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltraDinoWarrior/pseuds/UltraDinoWarrior
Summary: This is an Among Us Fanfiction that takes place in the Skeld! Follow Jay as he and a crew of ten members try and fix a damaged ship after an encounter with mysterious space debris... It's pretty good that no one else noticed the two bodies floating away from the ship without suits right?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Among Them

Sweat dripped slowly down my face under the helmet. Thumbs twisting, I dared peeked at the other two sitting across from each other at the cafeteria table. I couldn’t see their faces through the visors of their spacesuits, but that only brought relief. I was very glad they couldn’t see me right now.  
“I’m telling you, it’s not me!” Carson hollered, his cyan colored fist slamming into the table.  
“And I’m really suppose to believe it’s Jay?” Angel growled, leaning back in the chair with her arms crossed. She sent me what I assumed was a reassuring glance. I often found myself imagining what she looked like under her yellow suit with silent hope she had a very gentle smile.  
“Angel, you bitch, get your love-struck ass out of your fucking eyes for five second—”  
“I’m not love struck! Jay was with me the ENTIRE time the past few days. He never hurt me, so there’s no way he could’ve done it. Plus, he reported the body why would he do that, huh?!”  
“Obviously to frame me! I literally saw it!”  
“You really expect me to believe Jay would ever do that?!” Angel was up on her feet now, slamming both hands on the table. If it hadn’t been bolted to the floor, It would’ve been tipping sideways. My eyes glazed down to the AR screen in front of me. If I casted my vote now, Angel would probably join me. My eyes trained themselves on Kard’s blacked out name on the screen, biting my lip.

Three days ago, there were ten members aboard the ship, the Skeld. The Skeld had one mission: land on Atlas and establish a base there. Atlas was a small planet with lesser levels of life located in an orbit that circled most of the Mcklain Galaxy. It circled in a nice dead center location, passing by all the major planets of interest in its cycle at one point or another while also finding itself in prime locations to clearly reach signals from earth. For humanity, this was an ideal location to establish a communications base while the colonization of the Mcklain galaxy began. It was an important mission. One that held the future of outer galaxy space colonization in its success.  
The ten members of the Skeld were not humans, rather beings known as Kleeves. Genetically modified species of human made for space travel and colonization. They lived longer, aged slower, and were physically smaller, making resource requirements significantly lower. The internet communities playfully called them gnomes or dwarfs, but they were highly respected beings. Some people even argue that Kleeves were the very future of evolution for the human race. While Kleeves have proven themselves capable of colonizing earths’ planetary neighbors, this would be the first Kleeve mission out of the milkyway. 

When the Skeld were barely a week out from landing on Atlas, an unexpected error occurred. The ship was struck by space debris, damaging the ship and sending most of the systems offline. All ten crewmembers survived the crash, however they all found themselves required to live in specialized space suits until all issues had been resolved. Three days ago, they were nearly finished repairing the ship. During the major repairs, crewmembers barely had any time to interact with each other over the prior week as most of the time was spent outside of the ship doing outer repairs. So it was no surprise that in all the excess debris, no one noticed two bodies without suits drifting away into the cold darkness of space. 

At this point and time, the Skeld’s computer systems were back online. Most notably the democracy systems were now functional again. The computer had several systems in place to deal with dissent within the crew. These were installed after a pretty bad situation at the Polus’s base located on Mars’s polar cap. Apparently, some people snuck into the base disguised as workers and managed to kill several people until caught. Everyone felt this was an unnecessary precaution, however, that didn’t stop people from using it regularly.  
I was busy staring at a panel in the electrical room when an alarm went off. Immediately the automatic teleporters activated, surrounding me in lights until I suddenly found myself sitting in the cafeteria. Ten of us, all in brightly colored suits of rainbow colors phased into existence around the table. With the current situation, the cafeteria had ceased use as an actual cafeteria. After all, we were no longer able to eat traditionally but rather had to pump food into our life support containers on their backs. Thanks to ship’s gravitation systems, a layer of dust covered the purple seats and table. 

“Is something wrong?” Crystal spoke first with a feminine voice from a purple suit. Captain, a Kleeve dressed all in white and wearing a sailor hat taped to his helmet stood up in the center of the room. Despite his nickname, he was not the leader of the crew. The computer handled tasks, and other relevant decisions were made directly through a majority vote.  
“Not exactly,” Captain announced, evoking a groan from the rest of the crew. He made a coughing sound and continued, “I felt it necessary to test the emergency meeting systems. Remember, at any point you can activate this directly from the visor in the case you stumble across something the computer registers as a ‘major emergency’ threat.”  
“I was in the middle of a download, Cap, fuck you,” the Kleeve in the green suit hissed angrily throwing up their hands. They went by the name, Lief.  
“Stop being a piss ant, Lief,” grumbled the Kleeve in the pink space suit in a very deep masculine voice.  
“Lief, Kevin, please. We need to work together, our mission is too important,” Angel chided, nodding her yellow helmet so that it bobbled like a bobble head toy. “We only have a few tasks left before the ship is functional again.”  
“Yes, everyone hurry and get them done,” the young Kleeve in the Lime suit piped, “I’ve swear I’m getting sketch vibes… I mean, that debris looked… weird okay?”  
“Weird how, Parker?” Crystal frowned.  
“I don’t know, like, Polus weird?” Parker’s parents had apparently worked on the Polus lab during the imposter attack, and he almost never hesitated to bring it up.  
“Parker, we are the only ones out here,” Angel said.  
“Yeah, but like, Aliens,” Park coughed.  
“Oh my god, Parker,” Lief snorted, “don’t be fucking stupid. There’s no intelligent life out here. Right, Jay?” Lief jabbed me in the side of my red colored suit with their elbow. I jumped.  
“R-right,” I nodded quickly, daring to peek at Kard, who sat silently cross armed in his blue suit across from me. Kard sent a warning glance, causing me to squirm inside of my suit.  
“Lief, leave Jay alone,” Crystal and Angel piped immediately, both female Kleeves providing protective hugs to the presumed very shy Jay. Yes, shy, let’s go with that, not nervous and guilty as all living hell.  
After an unnecessarily amount of banter and bickering, the crewmembers separated to return to their tasks. I joined up with Kard, as we walked together far away from the rest of the crew. We found ourselves alone in navigation.  
“It’s time to start moving into action,” Kard said, bring up a flickering AR screen. “It took me a while, but I hacked into the ships computer.” I received a message icon, as I too received access.  
“So, what’s the plan anyway?” I asked slowly, leaning on the pilot chair.  
“We—” Kard started when someone in an orange suit approached us.  
“Oh, hey guys,” Mark said cheerfully as he waltzed over to the navigation panel. He waved at me and pointed at the chair. “Mind if I?”  
“Oh, yes, of course,” I said quickly moving away as he took a seat. Kard took a quick look around before moving behind Mark.  
“Maan, Captain needs to stop with those random emergency meetings, don’t he?” Mark purred, pressing buttons to plot the ship’s course, likely one of his tasks. “I mean, these tasks are hard enough without being interrupted every ten minutes, am I right?”  
Before I could answer, Kard placed two hands on either side of Mark’s helmet. Mark released a confused noise, quickly followed by a sickening snap. The back of his helmet slammed into the navigation panel as his body slouched forward. I fell silent as I met Kard’s blank visor stare.  
“That’s the plan. We gotta be quiet about this though, because if they catch us doing this, they’ll boot us from the ship. I have the codes to sabotage the life support systems too. We can at least distract them with that, or possibly take them all out. It doesn’t work during meetings though. The computer systems’ weird like that and cuts off my access.”  
“Won’t we… uh, die too if that happens?” I asked, looking back at the limp orange suit in the chair. Kard didn’t respond, but simply ushered me away from him and to a distant part of the ship. It was a stupid question. We both knew this was a full-fledged suicide mission. Even if we successfully prevented the Kleeves from landing on Atlas, it didn’t mean there was any rescue coming for us after the fact. If we failed, our race was doomed.  
I shivered as I clearly remembered the “recon drones” as the human records called them blast several holes into my family’s burrow. Wandering aimlessly, I searched for some to do. The computer had a list of tasks for me, but I sure as hell didn’t know how to do any of them. Human technology was strange and awkward. Heck, had I not consumed the brain of the real Jay, I wouldn’t even be able to speak the language. That’d been unpleasant. Human brains don’t taste good and eating it filled me with so many memories. Kard had to smack me around to get me to even remember I wasn’t actually Jay. “Remember our mission, kid,” he had said almost daily. By now most of Jay’s memories had faded. I just kept the important stuff. Names, language, how to look like a normal human. Things Jay totally should know if that person was actually Jay. Occasionally I still dream his memories. Those weren’t pleasant since I’d wake up remembering the sweet goodbyes of family members and promises of return knowing full and well that Jay was a currently a half-eaten space-popsicle.  
Eventually working myself outside of Admin, one of the wire panels jumped out to me. I squirmed around inside of my suit, doing my best to flail the hands in a way that looked like I was doing something useful with the wires. Or the wire panel at least, I couldn’t even get it off. I didn’t really have hands.  
“Oh, that panel giving you problems?” Angel’s voice spoke suddenly as I realized she was beside me. She leaned over and undid the panel for me, revealing several snapped wires. “It’s kinda finicky.”  
“Ah, thank you so much,” I said quickly. I did feel pretty bad about ending the lives of everyone here. The short week of the friendly interactions made me realize that the kleeves… and likely the humans by extension weren’t the evil god-monsters my villager had perceived them to be. It’s thanks to Angel that I’d been able to adapt to pretending to be a Kleeve. Every time I dropped something, she picked it up for me. She directed me when I was lost and laughed when I said something odd. Often times, I would just stick by her. According to Jay’s memories, he’d always been a clutz, often earning the abandonment of the rest of the crew. But not Angel. When I had become even more clumsy, it only made her spend more time with me.  
Lief and Crystal were also pretty easy to be around, all things considered. Lief called me rude words, but they’d mostly just ignore me, so I could stand beside them helplessly trying to slam useless fingers into the panels, and they wouldn’t say anything. Crystal would watch me try something, and immediately just make me go stand by the wall while she did everything herself. When I apologized, she’d give me a head pat and tell me she just liked my company. I liked them a lot.  
So much so, that when Angel and I wandered into the electrical room together, it was me who screamed when I saw Crystal’s limp purple suit laying in a bloody mess against the wires. Angel immediately slammed her emergency button on her wrist, scanning the body. A few seconds later, we found ourselves back at the cafeteria.  
“AGAIN, my DOWNLOAD,” Lief threw up their hands, “What the fu— HOLY FUCK, MARK, GOD!” There was a sickening sloshing noise as both of the dead bodies that had also been summoned by the computer proceeded to slump forward, or in Mark’s case, backwards. We all sat in horrified silence.  
“I KNEW IT, ALIENS,” Parker cried, “IMPOSTERS, this is EXACTLY what Mom talked about, I told you!”  
“Okay, calm down, calm down, we don’t know if it’s any of us,” Angel said quickly, her voice shaking.  
“Angel, you found, uh, Crystal’s body,” Captain nodded, looking at the log report. He cradled his arms, lacking his usual spunk. “Where did you find it?”  
“Electrical, Jay and I walked in and found it together.”  
“Okay, who was near Electrical last,” Kevin growled, slamming a brown fist into the table.” The crew gifted him only silence as an answer.  
“W-well I was doing a d-download in communications,” Lief spoke first. “So it obviously wasn’t me.”  
“I was in medbay, when I walked in, Kard was in there using the samples,” Carson, the tallest Kleeve here dressed in a bold Cyan outfit answered shockingly calmly. Kard nodded in agreement.  
“Parker, Captain, and what about you Kevin?” Kard growled. “Where were you?”  
“I was in weapons.” Captain responded.  
“S-s-s-s-storage…”  
“Engines,” Kevin crossed his arm.  
“Lower one? Right by Electrical?” Kard challenged.  
“Don’t go pointing figures, I came from the reactor room to lower engines. I didn’t even hear Crystal scream.” Kevin slammed pink fisted glove against the counter. The shaking allowed gravity to take hold of Crystal’s body. Her upper half slid sideways off her lower body, hitting the floor with a wet slap. Everyone flinched at the sound. We all slowly stared at her lower half still firmly planted in her chair with the last of her spine sticking up from her leaking flesh. Several audible gags sounded from around the table.  
“IT WAS KEVIN, WASN’T IT!” Parker whined, pointing at the bright pink suited Kleeve. A ping sounded as the lime suited boy sent in his vote to boot Kevin from the ship.  
“Parker, please,” Angel said, “We can’t go ejecting random people into space willy-nilly.”  
“…No, Angel, I’m sorry this is a serious situation. We do need to take action,” Kard said slowly. Another ping sounded as Kard voted.  
“What the fuck, guys?! It’s not me. I didn’t even see Crystal. I didn’t know she was in electrical.”  
“Y-yeah… but I did see you walk towards weapons earlier when Mark went to Nav… and now he’s dead too,” Lief said slowly. They grabbed their shoulders, “Oh god, Oh, god, it IS you, isn’t it?” another ping. Kard sent me a nod. I bit my lip.  
“Are you all convinced it’s Kevin?” Captain frowned.  
“It is the most suspicious that he immediately started accusing everyone,” Kard explained. “Best option to shift off blame, in my opinion.” Captain mused for a moment, but then caved into the shaking looks from Parker and Lief.  
“Guys, this is wrong. I’m skipping vote,” Angel threw up her hands. Ping.  
“I… I agree with Angel,” I said, pressing skip vote on the AR icon.  
“Pussies,” Lief cursed. It didn’t matter what we voted, Kevin’s fake was sealed.  
“N-NO! IT WASN’T ME! THIS IS A MIS—” Kevin howled as two robotic arms dropped down and grabbed him. We all watched in silence as he was dragged over to the airlock door. The first set opened. Kevin was dragged in. The doors hissed as they slammed shut and began emptying the room of air. My heart dropped in my stomach as within the next few moments, we could see Kevin’s squirming pink suit drifting off into space.  
“O-okay. That… should’ve taken care of that,” Captain said slowly as tension filled the room. “L-let’s just finish our tasks. Good luck.” With that, he hurried away from the table.  
Angel and I wandered slowly through the ship, mourning Crystal’s death. The two bodies were carted off to the trash shoot by the computer. We just watched in silence as two people we had once knew were reduced to… “trash.” Angel grabbed my hand. I did my best to mangle my ‘hand’ in a way to that could comfortably hold and squeeze hers as she squeezed mine. Silently praying that she didn’t squeeze too hard and notice my hand was a lot squishier than it should be, I pulled her into Medbay where Carson was busy finishing whatever sample task Kard had been faking. Angel collapsed onto one of the beds.  
“My god, I c-can’t believe that just happened.”  
“We’ll be okay, Angel,” Carson said solemnly. “Do your medbay scan. Working will make you feel better.”  
“…O-okay,” Angel mumbled, climbing onto the platform and pressing a few AR buttons. I sat there and watched as the machine hummed and bright glowing circle ran up and down Angel’s yellow suit. As if on que, when her scan finished, the lights suddenly flickered out. Or I guess they did based on the way Carson and Angel reacted, screeching and fumbling in confusion. I could see just fine. When Angel almost tripped off the scan platform, I grabbed her arm.  
“A-are you okay?” I asked.  
“No, but I’m not physically hurt,” Angel muttered, “What happened to the lights?”  
“Stupid piece of crap ship, come on, let’s go to electrical and fix it,” Carson grumbled. When Angel and I hesitated, he sighed deeply. “We need to go together, if Kevin had an ally, we need to stay in groups.” That made us move. We wandered down to electrical, when suddenly the lights flicked back on and Captain appeared, meeting us at the reactor.  
“Kard and I fixed it,” the white suited man said. “Angel, come with me to admin, I have a download. We need to stay together too.”  
“I’m going back to Medbay, I’m not sticking with this damn loser,” Carson hissed.  
“Jay, don’t you need to do fix the shields?” Angel asked me gently as she moved closer to Captain.  
“Ah, y-yeah, right. I’ll go do that.”  
And with that, we all separated. I wandered over to shields where Lief was busy screwing with it. They were shaking, and nearly screamed when I approached.  
“Oh, fuck, it’s just you idiot. Ugh,” Lief grumbled. “Goddamnit. I hate horror shit.”  
“Yeah, this is all scary,” I nodded in agreement, leaning up against one of the metal bars. Shields was located in the lower right of the ship and, due to the damage, most of the lower machines were exposed. We had to hammer in a makeshift railing to avoid falling into the pits below.  
“Whatever. Hey dipshit, do you remember the correct order of this thing?” Lief asked, “Oh wait, of course you don’t. You’re an idiot.”  
“S-sorry!” I bowed my head. Lief laughed and patted my helmet.  
“Nah, that’s what I like about you. Carson, Captain, Kevin, and Kard all walk around with a fucking stick up their ass, ya know? But you, and… well Crystal was cool. No nosing in other people’s business. Just. Existing. Taking all the shit and none at the same time. I wish I could be like you.”  
“Uh, T-thank you?”  
“Ha, first time I’ve ever heard someone say that to me.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, who the fuck thanks the edgy idiot who pisses everyone else off?” Lief grumbled, squatting in front of the shields panel. “I was thrown on this stupid mission cause my original team didn’t wanna hang around me anymore.”  
“You don’t make me mad, Lief,” I said quickly.  
“Well you sure as fuck make me angry sometimes, useless shit. I watch you nap on the job.”  
“A-ah s-sorry.”  
“Eh, you cool.”  
“… I think you’re easy to be around you though. That’s why I can sleep comfortably.”  
“Dude, shut the fuck up, you’re going to make me cry,” Lief laughed and swatted my helmet playfully. “God, I love you though. It’s so weird having a friend, but I guess you are that right kind of idiot aren’t you.”  
“Y-yeah, I guess,” I laughed back.  
“AAAAAAAHHH.”  
We both shot up at the sound of Parker’s voice howling. We both ran down the hallway to find Kard standing over Parker’s lime green suit, slowly turning a muddy red color as a knife twisted in his back.  
“Jay!” Kard commanded as Lief raised their arm quickly to scan the now lifeless body of Parker.  
“Shit not close enough, Ugh you bastard! Jay, run,” Lief howled. I felt a pit drop in my stomach. If I didn’t act, Kard was going to get booted, but why did it have to be Lief? Lief looked at me in confusion. “Jay, dude, get the fuck out of here, I’ll report the bod—”  
“I’m so sorry.” The words came out coldly, but my body moved easier than I expected it to as I tore through the center of my suit. Cleanly reopening the hole I had used to crawl in a week ago, Lief only had a moment to turn towards me before one of my tentacles pierced his helmet. I felt it cut through his skull. His green suit dropped limp as I retracted, quickly resealing my red suit. The slick and slimy mush of his brain lingered on my skin. My stomach twisted, and I wasn’t sure if that was just my tentacles repositioning themselves inside the suit or whether I just felt extremely disgusted with what I had done.  
“Good work.” Kard said with a nod. “Quick let’s go—”  
“He called me his friend.”  
“What?”  
“I killed him. He trusted me.”  
“That gave you the opportunity to kill them, you need their trust.”  
“But I—” I started, but Kard walked over and slammed his fist into my helmet.  
“Stop feeling sympathy for them. They showed none for us when their recon drones destroyed half our home till they could safely call our planet, ‘lightly inhabited.’ Plus, what about the mother planet? I’ve been reading their logs. They’ve almost completely destroyed their home planet, and they’re just going to destroy our system if we let them.”  
“M-maybe if we talk—”  
“No. Even if we win the hearts of one or two people, the people in power of their world care not for us. They have our data on their recon drones. They know we exist, and they sent this ship anyway. What’s more important, our entire species, or a few earthlings with pretty words?” Kard said and marched in the opposite direction. A notification for the reactor meltdown started flashing on my screen. I bit my lip. Kard was right. The memories of the death and destruction brought upon my clan hurt worse than looking at the corpses before me. Still, I couldn’t help feeling terrible for Lief. With tears in my eyes, I ran the opposite way to the reactor. Doing my best to focus on the alarm noises to try to delete Lief’s echoing words from my brain.  
“Thank you Lief,” I said to myself, “Thank you, thank you, thank you for being my friend, I’m... sorry!”  
“Oof!” Angel yelped as I barreled right into her.  
“Oh, sorry, Are you okay?”  
“Yes, I’m fine,” Angel popped back to her feet, “We need to get to the reactor. Come on.”  
“R-right!” I agreed, following her yellow figure down the hall. We managed to make it to the reactor room entrance when I noticed shouting and hollering. Squinting, I could see Kard interacting with Captain and Carson’s figure running the other direction.  
“Jay, come on,” Angel ushered me into the reactor room. Nodding awkwardly, I ran to one side as she ran the other, and in sync, we pressed our hands against the scans. The reactor rebooted, halting the meltdown. Angel breathed a sigh of relief. “Ugh, where was everyone else? We barely made it in time.”  
“I don’t k—” I started to say before suddenly finding myself warped to the cafeteria.  
“We’re booting Kard,” Carson spoke immediately as soon as we were all able to speak. Kard sat there silently, interlocking his suit’s black fingers.  
“Want to explain why?” He said smoothly.  
“Yes, that’s why,” Carson pointed to the two limp green colored suits.  
“Them! You killed both of them! Don’t try to talk yourself out of this. I saw Parker and you go together and now he’s dead. And if I hadn’t made it to the emergency button in time, I would’ve been dead too!” Carson pointed at Kard almost dramatically, rambling, “I just knew it was you. I knew you were going to stab Captain too. I saw it in the way you were moving. I knew you also voted Kevin off too quickly. Plus, I’ve been watching you and your tasks. You’re doing nothing! You’re an imposter!”  
“Carson’s right,” Captain nodded, “He was blocking my way to the reactor…” Angel gasped, grabbing my arm and squeezing it. I bit my lip, twisting and turning inside the suit. I couldn’t stay still. Kard was caught. Kard was caught. Kard was caught. I killed Lief to avoid this, and now Kard was caught ANYWAY. Not that it mattered, if Lief had killed Kard, I would’ve had to kill everyone on my own. I couldn’t do that. I wanted to fess up here and now.  
Ping, ping, ping. Angel, Captain, and Carson all voted. I squeezed my eyes closed and voted Kard off myself. Sentencing my partner to death. We could survive a short time within the ship without these dumb suits but floating helplessly in the void of space would still suffocate us. Ping.  
Kard also voted for himself. He bowed his head as the robotic arms grabbed him and dragged him into the airlock. We all quietly watched him drift away into the darkness. Angel released a swallowed sob as she stood up.  
“C-come on, Jay, let’s go finish our tasks.”  
“R-right.” I nodded, following her, desiring to stay as close to her as possible. I didn’t want to be alone right now. Or at least, I wanted to lie to myself that I wasn’t alone, even though I was. Angel wasn’t with me. She just thought she was. I wasn’t going to kill her though. I just couldn’t.  
Honestly, I didn’t mourn Kard’s death as much as I just feared being alone. Kard and I had been thrown into this mission since we were the most able bodied. We needed two beings that were good at mimicking, and out of all of us left, Kard and I were the best choices. We even volunteered, considering both of our families completely destroyed in the last drone attack. I hadn’t interacted with him before the mission, and he acted rather cold to me during our week here. We were solely partners in crime with no other emotional attachments. I supposed I should be happy for him. He was with his daughter now.  
“I can’t believe it was Kard,” Angel muttered.  
“Yeah,” I agreed as I followed her around the ship. Angel repeated herself a few times, and each time I responded with the same reaction. Eventually the day cycle ended and we retired to bed.  
A whole two days passed by slowly as I followed Angel around. I knew I had to hurry up and end someone, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. The only person I was ever alone with was Angel, and I just couldn’t kill her. I wouldn’t. No.  
The crewmembers were almost done with their tasks though. As soon as they finished, it didn’t matter if they had so few people, they’d still be able to establish the base. It was mostly computer operated anyway. The computers would use the cloners and absorb feedstock from the soil. Then piece by piece, it’ll print off and assemble the base while Angel, Captain, and Carson just sat back and watched. As soon as that happens, the rest of the humans will be able to easily move to Atlas and the other nearby planets.  
Each night, I kept having nightmares. Some of stabbing Lief and the feeling of his brain squishing around my tentacle. The others were vivid memories of lasers filling my family full of holes and the wretched smell of burning flesh. My sibling’s skin had literally boiled from a blast, laying in a heap of bubbling meat. I felt sick when I woke up that final morning. Sick enough that I vomited a little in my suit.  
“Are you okay, Jay?” Angel asked, “I heard you gagging.”  
“I’m okay…” I answered, coughing. Angel rubbed the back of my neck.  
“You don’t sound okay,” Angel grumbled. “Look, you should go to medbay. Captain is there right now, he’ll help you. I’ll take you.” She grabbed my arm and helped me out of the resting pod. Limply, I let her half carry me to Medbay where Captain stood messing with samples in his white suit.  
“Nightmare sickness?” Captain asked as I slumped into one of the med beds.  
“Yeah,” I answered with a sigh as Angel stroked my helmet.  
“Same issue this morning,” Captain nodded.  
“I’m going to run to Admin to scan my card, will you watch Jay, Cap?”  
“Yes, Angel, He’s in good hands.”  
“Thanks,” and with that, she disappeared. A few moments later, Carson entered medbay. He and captain began discussing something that I tuned out as I stared at them. I needed to get rid of them. An idea hit me. It was risky, but at this point I would welcome the cold embrace of space.  
I waddled over to the group. The two Kleeves in suits turned towards me with tips of their helmets.  
“Are you feeling better, son?” Captain asked. I answered by giving him the same treatment I had given Lief the other day. Carson screamed, falling backwards onto his bottom as Captain’s body crumbled. I dared peeked at him as my tentacles flicked blood off of them, dousing the white walls of medbay red. I could see myself in the reflection of his visor. Red suit pulled in half with squirming black tentacles. I could see some of my horns peeking out from all edges, causing the gag in my suit to look like a gapping mouth. The cyan Kleeve could only sit there, shaking. As soon as my suit resealed, my hand slammed the emergency scan button on my arm. Carson looked at me in utter shock as the alarm went off. I met his gaze as medbay melted away and we found ourselves in a deadlock stare across the purple table. Dazed silence captured the table as all of our helmeted heads turned towards the limp white suit.  
“Carson… did it,” I said quietly, holding my arms and shaking. “I… turned my back for a second… and then… I came back… captain…”  
“BULLSHIT YOU FUCKING MONSTER,” Carson howled.  
“C-carson, oh my god, you too?!”  
“What, no, fuck no, this fucking little monster fucking peeled in two and impaled the captain fucking right in front of me!”  
“…Angel…” I whimpered.  
“Oh my god, I can’t believe there’s two of them,” Angel shook, her visor trained on Carson as she spoke.  
“I’m telling you, it’s not me!” Carson hollered, his cyan colored fist slamming into the table.  
“And I’m really supposed to believe it’s Jay?” Angel growled, leaning back in the chair with her arms crossed. She sent me what I assumed was a reassuring glance.  
“Angel, you bitch, get your love-struck ass out of your fucking eyes for five second—”  
“I’m not love struck! Jay was with me the ENTIRE time the past few days. He never hurt me, so there’s no way he could’ve done it. Plus, he reported the body why would he do that, huh?!”  
“Obviously to frame me! I literally saw him do it!”  
“You seriously expect me to believe that Jay would ever do that?!” Angel was up on her feet now, slamming both hands on the table. It hadn’t been bolted to the floor, It would’ve been tipping sideways. My eyes glazed down to the AR screen in front of me. If I casted my vote now, Angel would probably join me. My eyes trained themselves on Kard’s blacked out name on the screen, biting my lip. Would he be proud of me right now? Or would he be calling me a fool. I felt myself twisting with so much guilt, but it was time. I had to save my home.  
Ping.  
Carson jolted and looked at me. “You bastard didn’t just…”  
“For captain,” I said coldly. “Murder.”  
“You fuckin little mon—” Ping.  
“Carson, I can’t believe you.”  
“Angel, you ... you didn’t just do that did you?” Carson’s voice filled with panic. “N-NO! NO! NO! OH GOD NO!” was all he could scream as the robotic arms dragged him away. “YOU GOD DAMN MOOOONNNSSSTT—” CLANK.  
With the way he flailed his arm as he drifted away, I assumed he was still screaming that over and over. What a way to waste your last few minutes of oxygen. Angel collapsed, crying.  
“Thank God it’s over,” she weep, leaping up to hug me. I hugged her back, rubbing her helmet quietly.  
“Yeah, finally… over.” I agreed, pulling her back so I could stare into her visor. If I squinted really hard, I could make out slight details of her face. Gentle brown eyes and an equally gentle smile she was forcing through her tears. Stirring in my suit, I sighed with relief. “Thank you, Angel.”  
“Jay?” That gentle smile fading as she stared into my visor… into my eyes.


End file.
